With the advance of the Internet and ecommerce, businesses and individuals increasingly utilize carriers to ship packages they produce. Businesses and individuals may ship numerous packages each day, and may ship these packages to different destinations or under different constraints. For example, businesses and individuals may need to: ship packages overnight or by a specific time, ship to international destinations, ship via ground transportation (such as for dangerous materials), require signature at delivery, ship to difficult or untested destination addresses, ship refrigerated or hazardous materials, and other requirements.
Numerous shipping options exist for these businesses and/or individuals to utilize for shipping their packages. Businesses and individuals may choose from numerous regionally- or nationally-based package and letter carriers. These individual carriers offer varying rates of service based on destination, material, transportation requirements, and time requirements. With all of these competing options, it can be difficult for a business (more specifically, an employee of the business) or an individual to choose a shipping option which best or close to best supports a particular or a group of shipping needs.
In existing systems, users are merely able to poll carriers to determine proposed shipping costs and proposed time-in-transit for a package. Beyond that, these systems seldom provide users with additional useful information for the user to determine the “best” shipping option. A user, knowing only the proposed cost of a particular shipping option, may be unsure about whether additional, unposted costs may present themselves during shipment. For example, if a package is not delivered on time or in the right condition (e.g., melted, damaged), the carrier may be forced to refund money to the package's recipient. In another example, a particular destination may present challenges, such as tacked-on carrier surcharges for recipients who are frequently not at home or difficult to find. These costs may not be adequately represented in a carrier's posted fees to aid the user in carefully choosing the carrier for their packages.